U.S. helicopter crash kills at least 16 in Afghanistan

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An Afghan inspects the wreckage of an U.S. military helicopter crashed near Ghazni city, around 125 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, Wednesday, April 6, 2005. A U.S. military Chinook helicopter crashed in bad weather killing at least 16 people in the deadliest military crash here since the start of Operation Enduring Freedom. (AP Photo/APTN)

KABUL, Afghanistan — A U.S. military helicopter returning from a mission smashed into the southern Afghan desert Wednesday, killing 13 American military personnel and three U.S. government contractors in the deadliest military crash since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, the military said.

Two other U.S. service members were unaccounted for, spokeswoman Lt. Cindy Moore said Thursday. The nationalities of the three contractors were not immediately available.

The CH-47 Chinook was returning to the U.S. base at Bagram from a mission in the militant-plagued south when it went down near Ghazni city, 80 miles southwest of the capital, Kabul.

“Indications are it was bad weather and that there were no survivors,” Moore said. An Afghan official said there were no signs the craft was shot down.

Moore said the transport helicopter was returning from a “routine mission” when controllers lost radio contact. A second Chinook made it safely back to the sprawling base north of Kabul.

Abdul Rahman Sarjang, the chief of police in Ghazni, said the helicopter crashed about 2:30 p.m. near a brick factory three miles outside the city and burst into flames. U.S. troops rushed to cordon off the area, he said.

Sarjang said that the weather was cloudy with strong winds and that witnesses reported one of the helicopter’s two rotors looked damaged before it hit the ground. He said he saw no sign of enemy fire, and militants issued no immediate claim of responsibility

According to U.S. Department of Defense statistics, at least 122 American soldiers had died before Wednesday’s incident in and around Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom, the U.S.-led war on terrorism, began after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Accidents have proven almost as deadly as attacks from Taliban-led insurgents, including a string of helicopter crashes and explosions caused by mines and munitions left over from the country’s long wars.

The previous worst incident in Afghanistan was an accidental explosion at an arms dump in Ghazni province that killed eight American soldiers in January 2004.

Most recently, four U.S. soldiers died when a land mine exploded under their vehicle south of Kabul on March 26.

In November, six Americans — three civilian crew members and three U.S. soldiers — died when their plane crashed in the Hindu Kush mountains. The military’s last fatal helicopter crash occurred a month earlier when a pilot was killed in the west of the country.

About 17,000 U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan battling a Taliban-led insurgency and training a new Afghan army.

The top U.S. commander here, Lt. Gen. David Barno, told AP on Tuesday that the military would also now train Afghan police and provide intelligence to Afghan forces battling the country’s rampant drug industry.

Barno said the size of the U.S. force would be reviewed after Afghan parliamentary elections in September.

While U.S. forces focus on the south and east, the Afghan capital has also been shaken by a string of security incidents.

Kabul police said Wednesday they had arrested a man wanted for questioning in the March 7 killing of a British development worker as well as the kidnapping of three U.N. workers last year.

The suspect was detained after a gunfight in the capital in which a taxi driver was killed and two police officers injured, the police chief, Gen. Akram Khakrezwal, said.

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